Ask Kerblam
by Akktri
Summary: A strange happening at Kerblam's intergalactic customer service office.
1. Prologue

Imagine a place where you can order anything you like from any corner of the known universe. Books, ranging from the present, all the way to the beginning of time. Clothing appropriate for all sentient races, ages and genders, Qabmelar jewelry, parts and equipment for any existing vehicle, vacuum cleaners or even a fez, teleported directly to your location.

The place is Kerblam. Their motto: "_Don't just ship it, Kerblam it."_

The delivery system at Kerblam is 90 percent automated, but its award winning customer service sector is not, and award winning services comes with a hefty price, paid by its employees.

That terrific 3D holographic video communication forces each employee to be television quality presentable for the duration of their one break, twelve hour shift. This means a mandatory dress code, make up, shaving, weight loss programs, disposable undergarments, daily etiquette/posture/charm lessons and reviews, and a ten point customer satisfaction scale that could mean the difference between a raise, being sent home without pay, or outright termination, including, but not limited to, being deposited on a small, desolate asteroid in the middle of nowhere.

The company has a sliding scale dependent on species, of course.

The average representative spends twelve hours a day, seven days a week, in a claustrophobic little movie studio the size of a closet, and is micromanaged for more than half that amount of time. In the interest of gender equality among all races and species, dress code literally calls for dresses, for men, women, and other sexes. Each rep also gets assigned generic names and number designations, such as Gozdora 3, Abrita 400..._or Beota 171._

The day the incident occurred, the central customer service hub, Kerblam Prime, had been orbiting Jupiter, and Beota 171, a human expensively outsourced from the planet earth, had been called out of his cylindrical little studio for yet another performance review.

The view out the office window was spectacular, the massive angry eye of the Jovian giant surrounded by its multicolored swirling clouds. A pity he couldn't enjoy it from the interior of his booth.

Beota climbed the stairs to management's observation platform, staring into the miniature studios, watching with slight envy as a few of them left for breaks and lunches.

As an EOE compliant workplace, several major species had been represented at this location, individuals with blue skin, some with cat-like features, a tentacled thing with eyes all over its head, a half human half dinosaur man, a walking talking raccoon with one large cyclops-like eye, a creature that resembled those aliens you always hear about in UFO abduction stories...all clad in those ridiculous green dresses.

Beota straightened the awkwardly short skirt of his uniform, wondering what minor infraction he would get in trouble for this time.

With great hesitancy, he crept into the Supervisor's booth, a man, Beota noted with more than a little annoyance, who had the luxury of not being required to adhere to the thoroughly embarrassing dress code.

The boss's name: Denis Gaffney. With the heavy bulk, the glasses and the bald head, he resembled Robert Irvine, and was just as uncompassionate about weakness.

After showing Beota a recording of his work, the man said, "Your hair needs combing. You slouch too much. You need to stand straighter. Also, when's the last time you shaved?"

"This morning," Beota said. "Right before my makeup."

_"I meant your legs._ I've been getting comments about _stubble._ Also, I've caught multiple instances of you scratching yourself. Do you need facial cream?..._Jock itch powder?"_

_Will this humiliation ever end? _thought Beota. _Can I please get back to my job now?_

But no, that wasn't how reviews worked.

"Your delivery was good, you read the script the way you were supposed to, but you need to _smile more, put more enthusiasm in your voice._ You _do_ want to get promoted, don't you?"

_"I'd sooner win the lottery,"_ Beota remarked in a sub-audible murmur.

Denis looked angry. _"What's that?"_

"Nothing. I-"

And that's when it happened. Right in the middle of Denis's complaint about how Beota didn't speak loudly enough.

One by one, Beota's coworkers all started screaming.

Manager Denis switched on his monitoring system and found a blue feline crying in a ball in the corner of her studio. Her customer, connected by holographic feed, stared in surprise.

"Abrita 300!" the boss shouted. "Stand back up! Stop crying and smile!"

He switched to the camera in the next drum. The one eyed raccoon lay on the floor, foaming at the mouth. "Beota 270! Stand up now!"

A half human dinosaur wailed as she crouched by the wall, shielding herself from an unseen attacker, tears rolling down her face.

The many eyed tentacled thing had become a drooping mass of quivering tentacles.

The saucer man was shrieking.

Denis tried to take control of the situation by barking orders, but no one was listening.

Seconds later, the door to the manager's booth slid open, and the occupants inside joined in the screaming.

* * *

[0000]

* * *

Thousands of light years away, a green skinned, four armed creature stood at the peak of an outcrop on a rocky red planet, watching a square blue meteor hurtling through her planet's atmosphere.

"It is a sign from Iss!" called a stockier female behind her. "A bountiful hunt this season!"

The first female stroked her tusk thoughtfully, cast bones upon the ground to divine the proper course of action.

"What does it say, Ibira?" her companion asked.

After studying it for a minute, the slender female stuffed the bones back into her leather harness. "We ride."

They mounted up on gray six legged beasts, tightening the reins as their rides growled and snapped their crocodile mouths in anticipation of the hunt.

They thundered across miles of desert, but saw no sign of game, or water.

"Are you certain you read the bones correctly, Ibira?" the thick limbed one moaned.

"The sign was very clear, Tawroka. The bones aligned on prosperity, treasure, or a good hunt. Besides, we have yet to reach the place which Iss has marked with her star."

The odd meteorite struck a hilltop in the distance, sending up a fireball, debris, and clouds of smoke. The two galloped closer.

They spotted game, but it proved to be Xiqdabo, feathery squirrel things too small and flighty to be worth their while, so they continued on.

Over the next rise, they reached the impact crater, a blackened dent in the ground strewn with rubble and dead animals.

At center, upside down and buried in a mound of dirt, stood a splintery old blue box with signs about the police on its front side.

"What do you make of _that_, Ibira?" Tawroka asked her associate.

"I am uncertain. Perhaps it is a totem of the gods."

A door on the object swung inward, and out billowed fire and smoke.

A female figure in a suit coat coughed and stumbled out onto the ground.

Ibira cautiously approached the woman, drawing a knife. "Who are you?"

"Doctor," the stranger coughed.


	2. Chapter 2: Orientation

"This _has_ to be a mistake!" the young redhead cried as he compared an employer's address to a burned out building.

He'd applied for a customer service position two weeks ago. At the time, everything _seemed_ legit. They liked his work experience, did a telephone interview. Overall, he'd felt really good about it.

Well, _until now_.

_Did I get the directions wrong?_ he thought to himself as he stared at the computer printout, but the crumbling numbers on top of the door matched, and so did the street signs outside the parking lot.

Dressed in an excessively ironed white shirt, a tie, and brand new slacks, the freckled youth looked like an idiot before the abandoned ruins of a Perkins restaurant.

The windows had been boarded up, the double doors plywood in places where there should have been glass. The parking lot, devoid of all but two cars, showed signs of disrepair, the hedges and trees badly maintained, the fading green-yellow sign indicating that business at that location had been closed for some time.

A man of distant African descent, also dressed for an interview, approached the redhead. Square chin, soft facial features, honey tan skin. "Oi! _You looking for Kerblam too?"_

The redhead frowned at the paper in his hands. "Does yours say _9051 Hillcrest?_"

His acquaintance nodded. "_That's what it said in the email! It sure doesn't look like much, does it?_"

The black man (decidedly not African American, the voice had a European air to it) glanced back at a red Mazda where a plump middle aged woman sat behind the wheel, idly flicking her dreadlocks. The expression on the woman's face asked the same questions the two had asked each other: Was this legit?

"Nan's going to kill me!" he muttered.

The diction was unusual. Granted, the redhead detected a drawl, but it wasn't an urban American drawl. The word `ain't' wouldn't sound right coming out of that mouth, but `sodding' would. "You from Britain?_...Your accent..."_

_"Yah. Sheffield._ Just moved. The name's Ryan Sinclair. What's yours?"

The redhead smirked. "_I'm a tool,_ that's what. They've got employment scams like this all the time. I went to one last week that wanted me to peddle insurance for a commission. _At least they had the decency to serve us cookies and soda!_"

Ryan laughed. "It looks like I've got a lot to learn about this country. I think I'm going to go home."

_"Jason...Ferret?_...And..._Ryan Sinclair_, I presume?"

Jason stared. An officious looking woman with glasses had just appeared, seemingly from nowhere, clipboard full of papers in her hand. It had to be about eighty degrees in the shade, but the woman wore a long black dress, and a long sleeved gray top with a turtle collar going all the way up to her chin.

_What's up with the getup?_ Jason wondered. _It's way too hot to be wearing something like that_.

Ryan looked around for hidden cameras. _"This is a gag, right? You posting this on Youtube or something?"_

The woman's expression was humorless. "If you're referring to the building behind me, we're currently undergoing a remodeling process. I assure you this is a legitimately funded institution, and our company is continually expanding. This particular location will be the site of our new administrative offices.._.I'm assuming you are our most recent applicants?_"

The two men glanced at each other, silently asking each other if this were a good idea.

_"That depends,"_ Jason said. _"Does it look better on the inside?"_

* * *

[0000]

* * *

The two green aliens set up a tent with great haste, carefully placing the strange woman on a pile of skins within.

"What do you think it is?" Ibira asked.

Tawroka shrugged both sets of shoulders. "A pale goddess descending from the heavens. What does it look like?"

Ibira looked thoughtful. "I am not so eager to ascribe every happening to the action of divine beings, especially when this one appears to be as mortal as you or I."

_"You followed the bones. _You would not have done so if you did not believe in them, or the Goddess Iss who gives them their determination."

"The goddess gives us minds to contemplate matters, and make our own decisions about things. I do not think we should be hasty to give this pale thing worship simply because it fell from the sky."

"You are right. It could have suffered a great judgment from Iss, and we would fall into her disfavor. Perhaps we should leave this one alone and let the judgment of Iss be complete."

Ibira shook her head. "I will chart my own path. I wish to learn more about this stranger."

The pale woman groaned and rolled over on the skins, her hands glowing with weird supernatural fire.

"Ibira," Tawroka cried. "She _is_ one of the gods!"

* * *

[0000]

* * *

Jason didn't exactly trust the whole setup, but he enjoyed the privilege of looking around in people's buildings, so he went along with it. He wasn't stupid, he _knew_ what a scam was.

The interior of the building _was _better on the interior..._to an extent_. It had the feel of a technology start-up, ultramodern front desk with fax, high speed modem and slimline laptop, giant company sign on the back wall, and a cube farm. None of the desks appeared to be occupied, but they had plenty of monitors and thin clients. He could smell the fresh carpeting glue, the gray polyfiber pristine, newly installed.

No sign of tables, kitchen or booths, a definite sign this wasn't your average fly-by-night operation.

"Huh, not bad," Ryan remarked. "I'm feeling a _little better_ about this..."

The two got led into a little gray meeting room with overstuffed leather chairs, cherry conference table and mahogany cabinets.

"Okay," said Jason. _"Now if they could only remodel the exterior..._"

"My name is Wurobva Morgan," the woman said. "I will be interviewing you today. Please take a seat."

They did, and she set a packet of papers before each applicant. _"Fill these out. I'll be back in a moment._"

And then she was gone.

Ryan let out a chuckle. _ "Ferret? That's really your last name?"_

Jason shrugged. "_So what if it is?_ _You're named after a gas station!_"

"Sorry, mon. No offense."

Jason read through the first page of his packet with disinterest.

At first, the paperwork seemed completely ordinary, asking for work history, references, social security number and other personal information, if he were willing to relocate, all of which he'd already provided on the website but employers generally ask for in triplicate before they actually hire you.

And then...

`You may be required to wear a company issued uniform, which you must be responsible for, and keep presentable at all times or have a replacement fee deducted from your paycheck. Please acknowledge by initialing below.'

Jason sighed and did so.

`In the interests of maintaining gender neutrality in the workplace, both men and women are required to wear the same standard unisex uniform. Please acknowledge...'

"Any idea what it means by unisex uniforms?" Ryan asked him.

Jason shrugged. "It's probably like the UPS where they all wear brown jumpsuits. No big deal."

It got weirder at page five.

Jason let out an amused snort. The application just asked him if he believed in extraterrestrials, why or why not.

He turned the page, and his snort developed into a chortle. After asking if he liked science fiction stories, and what his religious beliefs were (the application emphasized they were an EOE and did not discriminate on the basis of religion, and allowed a prefer not to answer box) it asked him if he were okay with working next to an extraterrestrial.

He gave Ryan a sideways glance and a smirk.

Ryan chuckled, shook his head. "I think an alien _wrote_ this thing, mon."

The next line made Jason a little suspicious: `Are you aware that workplace rights do not always apply at other geographic locations such as international areas outside the United States?'

_That's fairly obvious,_ Jason thought. After checking yes and putting his initials in a blank, he added a note saying he'd prefer not to work in one of those countries.

_"Are they going to ship us out of the country?"_ Ryan asked as he stared incredulously at his own paper. _"I just got here!"_

"If they do that, I'm quitting."

"Ditto."

The next page showed a blurry black and white picture of what appeared to be a rhinoceros in space armor, asking him to provide a caption and describe what it was...then a bunch of strange Japanese looking symbols with multiple choice answers.

Jason gave Ryan a look that said `Seriously?' to which Ryan nonverbally replied, `Don't ask me.' and maybe, `Want to bolt?'

He shook his head. Being a good sport about the whole thing, Jason put in a joke for the caption, made up a description, then randomly circled answers.

The next page presented him with a blank Soduku box, with an accompanying jumble of symbols that presumably went there in a pattern. Jason frowned, turned the page around and around, eventually just filled the squares with a random assortment of symbols.

The interviewer entered the room, giving each of the young men a wooden box and a small hourglass. "Arrange these colors into a pattern. You have eight minutes."

"Hey," Jason said. "_About this application..._what's all this stuff about-"

The woman ignored him, marching back out of the room.

"I'm not seeing much comedic potential in this," Ryan remarked as he opened the box.

Both boxes contained a scattered mound of colored disks, with a set of little shelves to place them on. Ryan set his up like a rainbow, but Jason, being of a more artistic bent, arranged his in a pattern of hot and cool. The timer ran out and the woman collected them. "Will either of you be needing to do anything for the next two to three hours?"

Jason furrowed his brow. "_I...came here to work,_ so no."

But Ryan said, "I need to call Nan. I have to tell her about this."

_"Are you referring to the woman sitting in the lobby?"_

He flushed with embarrassment. "Be just a moment." And then he left the room.

"Are you finished with that paperwork yet?" Morgan asked the other applicant.

Jason flipped to the next page. "_Not...quite. _I'm not really sure what this has to-"

His interviewer walked out before he could finish the sentence.

The next pages of the application read like a MENSA test. Math, logic problems, lateral thinking puzzles, science, that sort of thing. Jason figured he hadn't done so well, but he gave it his best shot. The application concluded with some basic Q and A he'd seen a hundred times at other call center jobs, telephone calling laws, fair debt collection policies and so forth. He filled out the last page and set it aside.

Morgan came in a second later, collecting the forms. "Come with me."

She led him into a lounge, told him to sit down.

Jason stared at his surroundings - a gray couch, a coffee table piled with books, a computer station, framed pictures of monsters that looked like something from a science fiction movie. One side of the room held a receptionist's cubicle. An industrial Dexter clothes drier stood in the corner, a very oddball thing to have around a perfectly ordinary looking employee break area, especially considering how he saw no washing machine anywhere.

A few moments later, his acquaintance came in, and their interviewer closed the door.

_"So what are we doing here?"_ Ryan asked.

Jason shrugged. _"I think they're deliberating." _

He thumbed through a book. It appeared to be a technical manual of some sort, filled with the same symbols from the application, computer diagrams, pictures of monsters. "Any guesses why that lady had herself all covered up like that?"

"Muslim?"

Jason rolled his eyes. "Doubt it. Plus her head wasn't covered."

_"A tattoo."_

That made him furrow his brow.

_"Multiple tattoos!...An unsightly skin condition!"_

Jason pointed a finger, indicating he'd hit the nail on the head. He frowned, set the book down. "So. _Ryan. _You got your license revoked or something...Or just new to the country and working on getting some wheels?"

Ryan scowled. _"What are you getting at?"_

"No offense, but _your mother drove you. _I'm just wondering why."

_"I got a balance disorder,_ all right? _I can't even ride a bicycle._"

"Oh! _ Inner ear disorder!...How can you walk?"_

_"That's...different. _I don't have a problem with that. It's just balancing things, _walking a straight line._"

Jason gave him an apologetic look. "Gee, I'm sorry to hear that. I guess that _would be_ a problem when you're driving. They'd pull you over and think you're drunk."

Ryan marched to the door. "If the woman comes back, tell her I went to the loo."

When he turned the knob, it came off in his hand. _"Bananas!"_

Ryan knelt down, tried to fix it, but then he just laughed and shook his head. "I _knew_ this was a gag!"

He glanced back at his companion. "Oi! Jason! Come take a look at this!"

Jason rushed to the door and stared.

A metal disk, covered in strange symbols remained where the handle used to be. Japanese-esque script, just like the stuff he'd seen in the application.

"Great," he groaned. "Looks like we're stuck in one of those stupid escape rooms!"

* * *

[0000]

* * *

For hours the green creatures silently observed the stranger, from time to time wetting her mouth with water from their drinking skins.

At last the blonde sat up, blinking at her surroundings with confusion. "Where am I?"

Ibira and Tawroka exchanged uncomfortable glances.

"The wastes of Zecmozepe," Ibira said. _"Why were you cast from the sky? Did you do something to dishonor the great Iss?"_

This puzzled the woman even more. "Who is Iss?"

Ibira and Tawroka made the symbol of the goddess across their breasts.

The woman frowned, reached into her coat pockets, pulled out a shiny silver stick, a pair of sunglasses and a yo-yo.

Her hands moved to her bosom. "Good heavens! _ Where did these come from?_ _Have I always had them?_"

"I do not know," Ibira admitted. "We have not seen you before this."

The woman checked her pants pockets. "These clothes do not seem to fit my body shape. I could almost swear that some _things_ have been shifted around. A pity you don't know anything."

"I am sorry."

"Do you have anything more comfortable for me to wear?"

Ibira dug in a bag, taking out a leather harness, not much more than a bunch of straps.

The woman made a face. _"Thank you. I'll pass."_

"You glowed with a divine fire during your sleep," Tawroka said. "You _are_ a goddess, aren't you?"

The stranger furrowed her brow, thought about it for a moment. "...No. I do not think that's what I am."

"What is a Dok-Tor?"

* * *

[0000]

* * *

"Are they going to turn up the heat and fry us to a crisp?" Ryan wondered aloud as he stared at the broken door knob.

_"That's just a movie,"_ Jason said. "If all they want to do is kill us, why would they go through all the trouble of processing applications and doing an interview? It would be bad for business."

_"Depends on what kind of business they're running."_

"Did you apply for a customer service position?"

"Yah? Why?"

"If we're here for entertainment purposes, they could have casted it differently. Maybe brought in a fire fighter or a Navy Seal with an interesting past."

_"I'm from the UK._ Are you saying that's not interesting?"

"Only if you have Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. No, I'm pretty sure this is either a lateral thinking test or one of those funny hidden camera shows."

Ryan kept staring at the door plate. "Do these symbols mean anything to you?"

Jason shook his head. "All I know is that they match those books on the table, and our applications. There's no decoder."

He marched up to the drier. "I wonder if this has anything to do with it. Seems a bizarre thing to put here."

Jason pushed the buttons, but it didn't do anything, its darkened LED display explaining why. When he opened the door, he found nothing unusual about it, no special symbols or notes. "A drier but no washing machine."

"That woman _did say_ they were _remodeling..."_

When Jason went to get a soda, he discovered that the machine also had those (Hindi? Chinese?) symbols on it, both on the logo, _and_ all the buttons.

No slots for coins, dollars or credit cards. "Hey, Ryan. I think we're supposed to use this for something."

Ryan came over, gawking at it and the snack machine next to it. _"God, they really went all out on this, didn't they?_"

The buttons on both machines, _and_ all the individual packages had foreign characters on them. He pointed to a laser scanner. "You suppose we can use _that_ for something?"

"_Maybe_. I've seen vending machines with a thumbprint scan, but nobody took our fingerprints yet. If they want us to do something with it, I don't see how it would work."

Ryan tried the door to the reception area, but it was locked, both on the actual door, and its frosted glass window. "All right. _They've had their fun..._" He stared up at the ceiling for a moment, then strode up to a window at the end of the room.

"What are you doing?"

"I didn't come here to do an escape room, I came here for work. So _rather than waste me and Nan's time..._" He grabbed the cord on the Venetian blinds.

_"Don't tell me you're seriously going to break the windows and crawl outside."_

"Why not? _This is stupid!"_

_"Even if they're paying us to escape the room?"_

Ryan shook his head. _"As if!"_

When the blinds came up, they saw the rocky surface of the moon. Both stared in astonished disbelief.

* * *

[0000]

* * *

The pale stranger didn't have that much to tell them..._about anything_. Even her name was a mystery. When they asked, the woman only answered, "I don't know." She could only guess that part of it was "Dok-Tor".

"It is like Gobqaro after she got caught in the rockfall," Tawroka remarked. "She remembers nothing. Her mind is empty."

"Gobqaro was brought back to her senses by living among Qozisa in the village. Perhaps if we show her the wooden box she arrived in, it will loosen her memories."

And so the two green aliens led the stranger out across the wasteland, to the spot where the blue machine had crash landed.

They saw nothing there, only a square depression and footprints that ended abruptly in a sand dune. Ibira swore softly under her breath.

"What happened to it?" Tawroka asked.

Ibira examined the tracks closely. "_An enemy tribe._ They must have stolen the Dok-Tor's treasure chest to gain the powers of the gods for themselves."

"Where did they go?"

_"That is a mystery. _They seem to have used deception or the powers of the gods to vanish into the air. Dok-Tor, does your wooden box contain a magic that can do such a thing?"

"No," said the woman. "...Wait..._Perhaps it does."_

"Do you know of any sorcery that can bring it back?"

_"...No."_

* * *

[0000]

* * *

Ryan tapped on the window as he stared out across the rocky landscape. "What do you think it is?"

Jason shrugged. "I don't know, some kind of video monitor?"

Parallax scrolling is when you move a character in a video game, and it looks like objects in the background are moving independently in relationship to what you're doing in the foreground, a second mountain range and a castle that moves as you're going past trees and a hillside. That kind of thing. Ryan experienced that same phenomenon when he stepped to a different side of the glass. "I don't see how that could be possible. I can see the craters from different angles when I change position."

Jason disagreed. "I don't know. Some of these setups can get very elaborate." He yanked another cord, and a second blind came up, revealing more of the moon.

"I guess it _could_ be a movie set."

"I've seen something like this before at a space center. _ They had a large area built to look like the moon..."_

Ryan pointed to the backdrop. "But how could they make those little mountain ranges and stars move around like that?"

"You can do a lot with sensors. Make lights come on when you enter a room, increase the temperature of a swimming pool...Maybe they have something telling a computer what to show us when we move around."

"I don't see how that would work if we're moving to different parts of the glass." Ryan checked the corners of the frame.

"I don't think that's going to open. We don't even know if it's actually a window, or just a wall with a video monitor on it.'

"If it's like the space center, they might have an emergency exit in there."

_"And they might not._ Maybe it's all sealed off because they don't want anyone in there."

Ryan tapped on the glass. "That sounds hollow."

Jason frowned. "I...don't know. Maybe we should leave that alone. Especially if it's just a window with a wraparound TV behind it."

"All right then. Let's use our heads. How do we get out of here the proper way?"

Jason made a selection on the soda machine, held his debit card over the laser.

"You absolutely sure you should be doing that?" Ryan asked. "I mean, _if you mess up the puzzle..._"

To Jason s surprise, something clanked and thundered into the take-out port.

Not what he expected. The can dispensed did not resemble anything a real soda company would produce, except maybe in China. The logo was all printed in tiny foreign symbols.

"You think it's a clue?' Ryan asked.

Jason shifted the can in his hand. It felt solid. "I think it's actually a drink. Maybe they got something like a soda stream."

_"Maybe_ _there's a clue in the bottom, and you have to drink the whole thing to find out what is!_"

Jason popped the top, looking inside. Whatever he'd just purchased, it looked like ranch salad dressing and smelled like burnt popcorn and tuna. "There's no way in hell I'm drinking that."

Seeing no sinks or toilets, he emptied the can on a fern.

Since the stuff was opaque, Jason tried rinsing out the can with the water cooler, but found nothing but a shiny aluminum bottom. _"Well that's a bust."_

_"Maybe_ _the answer's on the outside of the can, _or..._inside a different can!"_

"How about you use _your_ debit card for that?" Jason groaned. "I came here to _make_ money, not _lose_ money."

"You sure it even _read_ your card? _It could be a trick..."_

It wasn't a trick. He tried using a library card and a Price Chopper card, but neither one got accepted. "You still gotta use the _loo_?"

"Naw, I'm good. Let's just figure this out before I _really_ have to go." Ryan rubbed his chin, staring at the buttons. "_You think there's a _combination_ you have to punch in?"_

Jason frowned. "Let's... look around for _plaques_ or something for a hint. I don't want to waste more money if I don't have to."

They took apart the couch, because it seemed like the thing to do in this kind of situation.

Two throw pillows had been placed on each couch, but the only thing they found beneath these were diagrams of something they couldn't identify. They decided to overturn the couch cushions themselves. The first one they looked at had this message embroidered to its underside:

_`Type `_welcome_' on the vending machine buttons to get a special treat.'_

Both men laughed at this. "How the hell are we supposed to type anything if we don't know the language?"

They turned over another cushion.

_`The sodas are $1.85.'_

"You have _got_ to be kidding me."

"Not helpful," Jason agreed. "Well, it _is_ helpful, but not in the way I wanted."

_"That junk looked like mayonnaise. I think you got ripped off, bloke."_

Wham! The unmistakable sound of something colliding with a window. Both of them turned and looked.

A man in a spacesuit stood outside, yelling and pounding on the glass with his gloved hands. No helmet. His face appeared to be appropriately blue.

Jason and Ryan stared as the stranger clutched his throat, making frantic gestures about letting him in. They searched around but couldn't figure out how to help. The window proved to be made of a type of unbreakable tempered glass

"We're stuck in this room! I don't know what you expect us to do!"

The man collapsed on the rocky ground.

* * *

[0000]

* * *

The woman and the green aliens returned to the tent, supped on the scrawny Xiqdabo roasted over a fire.

Lacking better ideas `Dok-Tor' went along with the green one's plan of following the bones to their next destination. In the cool of dusk, the green ones helped her onto the back of a gray many legged beast, and they rode across the wasteland in a seemingly random direction.

Discovering a cigarette case in her pocket, Dok-Tor opened it up and found candy. She tried a piece, offered some to her driver.

Ibira only grimaced as she chewed the stuff.

Dok smiled, fiddled with a metal stick, causing it to emit high pitched buzzes and squeals. A couple frequencies made her driver cover the sides of her head with two free hands and fling the device into the dirt.

"That was mine!" the woman cried.

_"And now it is gone."_

The woman took out a pair of glasses, wearing them, fiddling with buttons on the sides.

She looked out across the desert, glanced back in surprise at what she saw.

She pointed. "Do you see that?"

Ibira shook her head. "I see nothing."

"Oi! Stop! _There's something there! _I think it might be important!"

The green creature waved dismissively. "Stranger, you have known nothing and told us nothing since we found you, and now you say you have found something important?"

Dok Tor offered the glasses.

Ibira tried them on, but was unconvinced. "I do not understand what I am seeing. Are these mystic symbols of the gods?"

"No," Dok Tor groaned.

Ibira handed the glasses back. "Unless you see your box, we will continue in the way the bones have led us."

Frustrated with the turn of events, Dok Tor grabbed the side of their gray mount and slid to the ground, rushing off in the direction of the mysterious object.


	3. Chapter 3: Escape Room

Ryan gawked at the astronaut, who, in all intents and purposes, appeared to be dying. "What do you make of _that?_"

"Not sure. You think we're really on the moon?"

He got a laugh from that.

"I've never seen them combine the horror zombie genre and sci-fi with escape rooms before." Jason took a look out the window. "Wow that's realistic...He _really _looks like he's dying."

"What if he _really is_ dying?"

Jason pressed his face to the glass. "_From what? Taking his helmet off in space?_ News flash: You can't go into space without leaving the ground!"

_"Poison?" _

_"Could be. I mean, if it's not acting."_

_"We should try to help him."_

"You're right. If they're a hiring decision involved here, we'd better hurry up and figure this thing out."

There seemed to be no immediate way to rescue the astronaut. Nothing around them seemed capable of opening out into that lunar landscape, and when they tried to break the glass with a folding chair, it just bounced off. And then the chair fell apart. The two men chuckled and shook their heads.

"Maybe we should call the police or an ambulance."

Jason frowned. "And tell them what? _That we saw an astronaut dying outside an escape room?"_

Ryan pulled out his phone. He scowled at the screen. "No bars."

Jason checked his own and found a similar reception problem, one that didn't change, no matter where in the room he went. "What the hell! I just paid the bill!"

Even pushing 611 didn't work. The thing at the top of the phone said emergency calls only.

"What's wrong with our phones?"

"Maybe we're underground, or surrounded by lead or something that blocks signals."

"Can you get emergency services?"

"I...kinda hesitate to use it."

"Jason, _a man is dying!_"

Sighing, Jason pushed the button to speed dial 9-1-1, but nothing happened. _"Lovely. Guess we've got to save him ourselves."_

The room had a computer station, the kind of setup companies like UPS always had around for filling out job applications and doing aptitude tests, but when we tried to use the things, a lock screen came up, telling us, "I'm salty and I'm made of corn. When you log in, don't look up porn."

I groaned at the stupid joke.

"I think we're supposed to get the crisps," Ryan said.

Jason raised an eyebrow. "...Oh. _You mean chips."_

"No, those are made from potatoes."

He gave Ryan a blank look.

_"Fish and chips?"_

"Oh! _You could have just said that."_

_"Crisps, chips, who cares what you call them!_ They want us to use the vending machine."

Jason checked the other computer's lock screen. "Glove on hand, sword in sheath, for alphabet, look underneath."

They returned to the couch.

"QWERTY", the next cushion said.

Jason frowned. "Real useful."

The fourth cushion just had a giant symbol printed on it. Since the back of the couch didn't come apart, Jason checked Ryan's couch.

A picture of a red herring, another weird looking symbol, a diagram, and an embroidered paragraph of English letters arranged to form unfamiliar foreign looking words. "Any ideas?"

"None whatsoever..._wait_." Ryan got down on the carpet, sliding underneath the coffee table. After scratching something with his fingers a moment, he came back out with a transparent film the general shape and size of a keyboard. "_I think we're in business._"

Jason furrowed his brow in puzzlement until his companion placed the sheet on the computer keyboard and pointed to the buttons. "_Gentlemen, we have an alphabet._"

They found a notepad and a golf pencil, which they used to copy down all the symbols, _and_ the symbols for 'welcome.'

Giddy with the excitement of figuring it all out, they rushed to the vending machine, pushed the appropriate buttons. The corkscrew turned, dropping a bag of something resembling Doritos with a non English label.

Jason opened the bag. At first, not anything more illuminating than the can of 'salad dressing.' despite the label, the stuff inside looked like plain Lay's potato chips. "Gross." He offered them to Ryan.

One thing Jason couldn't stand people who completely unfolded their bag of chips to eat them. Ryan just happened to be one of those people. He rolled his eyes, watching him eat.

For once, his pet peeve had a useful function. The mylar bag had instructions printed on its interior.

Unfortunately, when he went to the window to check on the astronaut, he found the man had stopped moving, apparently dead.

[0000]

* * *

Dok Tor checked the glasses, for the tenth time, but at this distance from the object, she no longer needed them.

It was not, as she expected, her blue 'treasure chest', nor that discarded silver thing that even now lay somewhere buried under the shifting sand. Instead she found herself standing in front of a large building.

It clashed oddly with the alien landscape, a three floor brownstone structure with porte-cochere, concrete stairwell connecting to a landing, and below it, an enclosed smokers patio. Halogen floodlamps illuminated it in places, adding an atmosphere of normality to something far from commonplace.

Dok Tor's green companions, driven by their mystical questing, followed close behind the woman, silently dismounting and drawing knives, frog-like eyes searching the area for unseen dangers.

The woman pulled open the glass outer door, stepping through an air conditioned foyer to an even cooler reception area. Although the temperature change would have been wonderful earlier in the day, at night, after a cold travel through the desert, Dok Tor found it downright chilly.

Despite all this, she _was_ thirsty, and the hum of a drinking fountain called to her. She rushed over and took a long drink.

She saw not a soul anywhere. Empty desk, empty break area, plasma TV displaying corporate statistics for some company called Kerblam, to nobody.

The inner door swung open, and the green creature joined her. "You should not be here. It is unsafe."

"_Perhaps..._" Dok Tor furrowed her brow. _"...But I feel strangely at home!" _

Tawroka, who had followed them in, remarked, "It is the dwelling of the gods!"

"Are you here for the open house?" someone asked. "If so, you're forty eight hours early."

* * *

[0000]

Jason frowned at the body. If this man were really dead, it was far too late to do anything about it.

As Ryan dusted chip crumbs off his hands and got up to get a drink from the water cooler, Jason examined the mylar bag. The instructions contained a password (written in foreign language symbols of course) and some directions on computer modules. He hurried to a computer, typed the thing in, then scowled at the frustratingly cryptic interface.

In keeping with the sci-fi theme, the computer didn't have a standard desktop GUI interface, but some other arrangement of pictures, inside a 3D globe, and the mouse and keyboard really didn't correspond with it that well: A diamond, a cube, a sphere, a cone, and a bigger sphere in the center that resembled a diagram of a planetary core or a jawbreaker. Following the directions on the chip bag, Jason clicked on the diamond.

"Oi, what's that you've found?"

As Ryan neared the computer, he stumbled, fell to the floor, foaming at the mouth as he convulsed.

* * *

[0000]

The speaker had an unusual appearance, but nothing amazingly so. Lanky, dark colored hair, goatee. With the slicked down hair and slightly pointed ears, he fairly resembled The Count from _Sesame Street_ with glasses. The voice coming out of his mouth, however, made you think of that rat from the _Charlotte's Web_ cartoon. "I'm Steve. Are you all of you interested in the customer service position?"

Ibira gawked at him. "You seem unsurprised to see us."

The man only smirked. _"Worked here awhile._ Seen a lot. Nothing shocks me any more. We're an equal employer. If you've got the skills we're looking for, we'll accommodate you, _no questions asked. _How'd you find us, if you don't mind me asking?"

"My friends brought me," Dok Tor said.

"Oh. _Referral_." He turned to face the aliens. "Did you see any of our advertisements? Fliers? Signs?"

"Oh yes!" Ibira said eagerly, dumping the contents of a pouch onto a desk. _"It was definitely a sign. _You see, the bones fell this way..." She arranged the items in the precise pattern she'd thrown them when her adventure began.

"Well, _whatever works for you..._" the man deadpanned.

Dok Tor stepped forward. "If I _were_ interested in this..._position_..._what then?_"

Steve chuckled a little. _"Let me show you around."_

* * *

[0000]

Jason got up, rushing to Ryan's side. "Whoa! Buddy! You all right?"

Ryan was too busy convulsing to answer.

Having witnessed similar incidents before, Jason cleared the floor around him and watched carefully to make sure Ryan didn't choke or come to any bodily harm.

The thrashing stopped and Ryan rolled over. "Oh my God! What just happened?"

"You have epilepsy" Jason said.

Ryan gave him a pleading look. "_Please tell me you're joking._"

Jason shook his head.

"_But I've never had any symptoms!"_

Jason helped him to his feet. "I don't know what to tell you. You were on the floor having spasms."

Frowning, Ryan leaned on the desk, staring at the computer monitor. "_So what did you find out?"_

Jason glanced at the screen, then did a double take. He was looking at what appeared to be a giant, living, breathing piece of celery with eyes and an unhappily downturned mouth.

The celery thing was _talking to them in some foreign language. _Jason laughed. And how could you _not_ laugh at something like that?

This, however, only made the celery thing angrier. It was _yelling_ at them now.

Ryan rubbed his forehead like he had a headache. "_Jason...I...got an idea._"

Jason let Ryan take the helm.

Looking like he were reading from an invisible teleprompter, Ryan slowly uttered a string of unintelligible noises that almost sounded like words.

The celery thing looked annoyed, but less angry, slowed down its speech, and it and Ryan exchanged more weird sounds.

Jason chuckled. _"Okay. Neat trick. How are you doing that?" _

Ryan shrugged. "They hid a transmitter in the bag of crisps and I ate it. It swam up to my brain somehow. At least that's what they tell me."

_"Who are _they?_"_

"The people talking in my head! They're helping us solve the puzzle! Shh!"

"Ordinarily I'd say you slipped a cog, but I saw you have an epileptic fit, and now you're conversant in celerese. _Of course I never met you before today.._."

Ryan shushed Jason again, focusing on the screen.

A moment later, he asked Jason for the pillows with diagrams on them.

Ryan pointed to the parts of the diagram, stammered out nonsense words.

The creature said something then disappeared from the screen.

"What was that about?" Jason asked.

Ryan shrugged. "I don't know. _The voice coached me on what to say the whole time._"

Jason crossed his arms. "Honestly, Ryan, I can't tell if you're pulling my leg, being this is the first time we've met, I can't tell if all of this is an act. I imagine if I even _asked _if you were in on the joke, you wouldn't tell me."

"You're not the one who has someone talking in their brain. _This is feeling less and less like a game._" He lifted up the thin client, removing its plastic stand. A key had been attached to its bottom.

Jason snatched it out of his hand. "Ooh! I think I know what this goes to!" He hurried to the receptionist desk, unlocking the door.

The receptionist area didn't have that many useful things in it. A file cabinet, a desk, a set of cubbyholes on the wall, a dog door (one that didn't open) and a bookcase full of color coded books (Jason _really_ hoped he wouldn't have to delve through all of those). He tried plugging in the computer, but it seemed the power strip didn't work.

Noticing a package of Depend undergarments, he brought them to show Ryan. "You still need to use the restroom?...er, _water closet_?"

Ryan grimaced in disgust. "That's not funny." He cast an anxious glance at the back office. "Is there a creepy mannequin in there?"

Jason shook his head. "Like I said. This isn't a movie...Is that voice in your head telling you anything?"

Ryan shook his head.

He stepped into the room, picked up the phone.

The moment he held the receiver to his ear, the power went out.

This was when things got weird.

_Jason could see his breath... and his feet left the floor._

* * *

[0000]

The vampire-like man led the females into an elevator, a startling novelty for the green one, a fun place for the pressing of buttons. It took them a few moments for the elevator to get done going up and down, especially since Steve slapped their hands away and got threatened with a knife at one point.

You would have thought this would have hurt Ibira's chances at getting hired, but Steve chalked it up as a "Cultural misunderstanding" and let it pass.

Fortunately, they only had three floors and a basement as destinations. A key was required for the sub basement and roof.

They got off at the first floor, marching past a glass windowed executive boardroom. A little twenty something blonde gave Steve and Dok-Tor a smile, then, when her eyes moved to the green creatures, her facial expression said `Oh God, not more of _those_.'

Steve gave the girl a nod, and she pushed a button under her desk, `gracing' the double doors at the end of the hall to allow them through without setting off an alarm.

The man held the door open for them, leaving the group into an office containing twenty rows of cubicles. "This is where you'll be working. We're a secured office with a lot of sensitive data, so no cel phones are allowed on the floor. We'll go over the software during training - it's a little unusual. Overall, pretty average stuff for a financial institution. Any questions?"

Ibira nodded. "What is a phone?"

* * *

[0000]

"Are you floating?" Ryan asked Jason.

"What?" Jason _heard_ him, _he just didn't want to._

"I said, are you floating? As in, _off the ground?_"

"I...I'm... starting to think this isn't just a game."

Ryan stared at him incredulously. "What! _You seriously think we're in bloomin space?"_

"I didn't want to believe it, but _the gravity just disappeared. You know how hard it is to pull that off? _I mean, there'd have to be a _big fan_, and then our clothes would be flying up..."

_"You sure it's not a fan?_"

"Indoor skydiving requires a lot of _wind_ the only thing I'm getting is _cold_, like a house in the middle of winter when the power goes out. The same thing would happen in a space ship during an outage."

_"We could be dreaming..."_

_"I thought about that._"

"What do you think? Some kind of hypnosis?"

_"I...don't know. _What did it say on the phone? _Anything?_"

Ryan shrugged. "Just that we have a limited oxygen supply. So...That dying man outside...You think that was real?"

Jason swallowed. "Apparently so. I wish it was fake, I really do. I wouldn't feel like nearly as much of a scumbag."

"Don't beat up on yourself. Nobody in their right mind would have believed it was real."

"Um, Ryan? You said the oxygen supply was limited. _How limited?_"

"_We only got ten minutes worth of air._"

"Well, shit."

A set of red emergency lights flickered on. Jason could just barely make out the features of the room, well except the cubbyholes. Those had neon pink borders.

Jason looked to Ryan for advice. "The voice didn't say anything?"

_"Not a thing."_

"Okay...I think those square things have some sort of important to this puzzle."

He heard something creak, then a low animal growl.

"What was that!" Ryan cried.

Jason shushed him. "_Hey poochie._.."

In the dim light, he saw a four legged shape approaching. Being a dog lover, he knew how to handle random mutts. Forcing himself to show no fear, he offered an empty palm to it, allowed it to sniff.

He panicked a little when a mouth closed on his hand, but it only licked him, eventually allowing him to pet it.

The shape of its head didn't feel right, its fur like steel wool, but he didn't know that much about dog breeds, so thought nothing of it. "What do you you think goes into those boxes?"

Ryan paused and thought a moment. "We made use of just about everything in the room, but _I've been wondering about those pillows._"

"_Guess it wouldn't hurt..._" Jason muttered.

It turned out that the pillows _were_ a perfect fit for the compartments, and after shuffling one from one to the other, the pink neon glow changed to blue in that spot. They hurriedly stuck in the other pair, shuffling them around to match the first ones, then switched on their phones, using the screens to search the area for more pillows.

Ryan had found one in the receptionist's chair when he sat down to use the phone. When they opened the file cabinet, they found two more.

Jason noticed that one box had a larger shape than the other, and it seemed to be built for something weighty. It only took him a minute to decide that a couch cushion would fit perfectly in there.

Once they had all the pillows in place, the lights came back on, the heat normalized, and they returned to the floor.

Ryan paled, staring down. "_Jason!_" he hissed, nodding his head slightly to the left of him.

Jason glanced back. Did a double take.

The four legged thing had a head like a warthog combined with a camel, its mouth filled with alligator teeth. Useless leather 'bat wings.' Whatever it was, Jason felt certain it sure as hell wasn't a dog.

* * *

[0000]

The tour continued. They had a little break room with something called Heuristic Kitchen-kind of a convenience store with no clerk, just a computerized credit card reader. A secondary, smaller call room next door with only six rows of desks. The double doors took them back past the executive conference area to the HR office and a training room. Steve led them back into the elevator, turned a key in a keyhole.

"Most of our work gets carried out on the lower levels. As regular full time employees, you will be given keys to the sub-basement elevator and stairs. All your living requirements can be found down here. We've even got sort of a Starbucks, kind of like the one upstairs, but better. Of course you'll have to go upstairs if you need to do any smoking..."

The elevator came open at a lower floor. He showed them the underground space, the greenhouse-like hydroponics center with a chapel at the far end, a cafeteria, showers, bedrooms, laundry, video arcade, library, daycare center and a little internet cafe, another computerized vending system for coffee and snacks. The underground even had a bar and a casino, but that, like the chapel, had been situated in a little cave, not part of the actual blueprints.

"We go by the `abuse and lose' policy on that little establishment," Steve explained. "So far we haven't had too many problems, especially considering all the house money."

He clapped his hands. "Well, that concludes our tour. Questions?"

Ibira asked, "Will someone show me how to perform _food sorcery_ and..._internet _with_ the machinery of the gods_?"

Steve frowned. "Let's, uh..._take a raincheck on that, and get the interviews out of the way."_

They returned to the upper floor, entering the HR office, a cramped, narrow little room with file cabinets, computers, and a few desks. Steve handed all three of his guests a thick application booklet, directing them to sit at the empty cubicles in one corner of the room.

Dok-Tor appeared to be fairly competent with a pen, filling out all the appropriate blanks, but the two green creatures hadn't quite grasped the concept.

At first, they didn't even know how to use a pen. They had to watch the woman before they even started. After that, they seated themselves on the floor, scrawling weird symbols and pictograms all over the paper, seeming to care nothing for the questions or staying between the lines. Dok-Tor finished first, turned in her paper. The aliens, not understanding, did the same immediately afterwards, leaving large portions of the forms blank.

Steve flipped through the first packet, scowled at the answers, then waved the woman into a little room on one side of the office. The green females tried to follow her in, but he shooed them away, closing the door after himself.

The tiny room featured two chairs and a table, not much else. After they'd been seated, Steve asked the first question: _ "Can I see some identification?"_

* * *

[0000]

The animal's quadruple eyes were bug-like, but seemed calm.

"Nice doggie," Jason stammered, holding out his hand. "Good doggie."

"I wouldn't do that if I were you," Ryan warned.

"_Hey, it let me pet it earlier._"

_"Go ahead then - it's your hand!"_

Despite the nasty teeth, devil horns and tusks, the creature enjoyed a good petting. This eased a little of their tensions around the creature.

"Okay," Jason muttered. "Since we're really on the moon, I'll go ahead and say I now believe in life on other planets too."

"I agree. That doesn't look like any earth dog _I've_ ever seen!" Jason could tell he didn't trust it, though.

Noticing a restroom door nearby, Ryan tugged the handle. It didn't open because it had a security keypad.

Jason laughed. "I hate to tell you, but I think they put that package of -"

"_Don't._ I am _not_ doing that."

Ryan typed in a code and the door came open. Jason stared. "_You sure_ nobody coached you before we started this thing?"

"Naw. I just used Nan's alarm code. "_I didn't actually think it would work_..."

As Ryan disappeared inside, Jason checked the file cabinet for clues. The drawer that hadn't been holding pillows contained a damp pair of shorts and a pink shirt that read `Kerblam', as well as a box of drier sheets. Taking the hint, Jason _tried_ to do their laundry, but the drier had no coin slot, just a keyhole.

Ryan jingled a set of keys next to his ear. _"Looking for these?"_

"So they _did_ want us to use the facilities."

Ryan stuck out his tongue. _"I don't want to think about how they expected us to find that code!"_

They turned two keys in the machine, and something fell down with a metallic clank. Both men stared through the door.

The back end of the barrel had disappeared, revealing a brightly illuminated room. "Do they seriously expect us to crawl in there?"

Jason shrugged. _"I see light."_

_"You go then. _Let me know what you find."

Jason rolled his eyes. _"Bawk!"_

_"Right._ You don't want to know what I'll be saying when you break your fool neck!"

Jason got in the industrial drier. He had plenty of space to crawl around, and it was just a short crawl to the back end.

The moment he climbed out and got to his feet, a half naked green body shoved him into a wall, pressing a knife to his throat. "Tell me how to get out of here!"


	4. Chapter 4: Aptitude Test

It turned out that Dok-Tor _did_ have identification..._of sorts_.

_"Silly goose! Why didn't you put any of this on the form?"_

The man held a leather passport wallet in his hand. While the wallet itself seemed official, its interior held nothing but a pair of blank pieces of paper.

Dok-Tor furrowed her brow, mystified as to why the man hadn't been clued in to this particular fact. "What's it say?"

Steve chuckled. "Well...Maybe I should just transfer the information from this to the front of a blank application. _If all of this is correct, you and your friends will be quite at home in our little project."_

He started scrawling down `information.' "We really appreciate your cultural outreach efforts. I imagine it takes _a lot of patience _to work with these guys and train them properly..."

Dok-Tor smirked. _"You have no idea."_

The man flipped through the booklet, raised an eyebrow at one of the answers. "You know how to fix String Particle Dimensional Arrays?"

Dok-Tor's face reddened a bit. "_I know the technology is a bit antiquated,_ but..."

Steve snorted in amusement. "Come with me. I want you to take a look at something."

* * *

[0000]

A noseless frog-like face glared at Jason, the ends of two long curving boar-like tusks pointing dangerously at his throat. Instead of getting scared, Jason found himself thinking how its eyes were pretty, and how its four well muscled arms had eye pleasing feminine proportions. His skin tingled where her arms brushed against him, and even her curried fish breath he found somehow..._exotic. _He gave her a sheepish grin. "_Hey._"

The creature's eyes widened in shock, especially when she caught him casting appraising looks at her slender figure. Jason thought he saw a tinge of orange creeping into her green skin.

She shook him. The blade dug in. "I asked you a question!"

Jason swallowed, returning his attention to her eyes. "Sorry. I...I don't know. I thought this _was_ the way out."

The creature let go of him. "Are you staring at my leathers?"

"No," he lied, making a point to keep his eyes above her long neck. "So, uh, _I'm Jason._ What's your name?"

The female laughed.. "Ibira. You speak excellent _Torhibte_."

"Thank you," he stammered. "What's Torhibte?"

"It's what we are speaking."

"No, we're speaking English."

Ibira frowned. "I have never heard of this English. Perhaps we communicate so well because we are in a building belonging to the gods." She paused, rubbed her chin. "Or perhaps it was the _Kutnulit._"

"Another...language?" Jason ventured.

"No, an _elixir_. To aid us in negotiations with other tribes, the priestess of Iss gave me a drink from the goblet of Kutnulit. She said there was _power_ in the substance, a special property that allowed me to speak and understand languages. I did not believe it."

"It would be nice if _I_ could get something like that."

"I would not recommend it. It makes you very sick, until you get used to it."

"...I still think it would be worth it."

"My priestess is very far away, and _you'd have to be initiated into our religion._"

Jason sighed. "I was afraid you'd say that. I wouldn't mind a little hike, but _I'm not going to convert to another religion._"

"What would be so-" Ibira began.

"Oi! What's going on in here?" Ryan had finally mustered enough courage to crawl through the drier and join the two. He stood up, wrinkling his face when he noticed Jason's green acquaintance. "Ugh! What is _that?_"

"_Ugh!_" Jason repeated incredulously.

He cast Ibira an apologetic look. "I'm sorry. He's just never seen something, someone like you before."

The creature giggled, looking a bit orange again.

A second green creature rose from one of the couches, muttering to its companion. "The pale one seems attracted to you."

Ibira nodded. "Perhaps its mind has been affected by a potion of some sort."

"_I think I'd agree to that_," said Ryan. "He's gone a bit..._balmy!"_

A slight smirk on the alien's face seemed to imply that she _liked_ balmy. At least, _a little_. "I attempted to gain information on how to escape this place, but he seemed to have..._other things on his mind._"

_"Perhaps we can use this to our advantage,"_ suggested the other green creature. "_He will be open to_ _bribery_."

Jason grinned, eager to hear the terms of the offer.

Ibira's orange coloration deepened. "I am not prepared to bribe _anyone_ in the fashion you suggest. _Do not forget why we departed our tribe in the first place!"_

"Save your breath," said Ryan. "We don't know any more than you."

Jason raised his hands defensively. _"But I'll help you in any way that I can, free of charge!"_

He frowned at his surroundings. It seemed he had just left an escape room to find himself in another. Granted, the layout was different, but nothing creative like Sherlock Holmes or a haunted house, just another bland corporate training room. Instructor's aluminum desk and swivel chair, marker board with internet passwords on it, a single couch and an end table with another one of those weird manuals on it. Cubicles stood in the center, computers and telephone equipment, just like the stations in the other room. Jason noticed a pair of them had been shut off, with several important pieces removed. "Have you...found anything...hinting at an answer to the puzzle?"

"I don't know," Ibira said. "I thought we finished with this nonsense in the other room."

Jason grinned as he imagined her solving puzzles like an ordinary human being. "Cool. Maybe if we work together we can figure this out."

Animal growling sounds put everyone on alert. The two females drew knives.

Jason glanced back and saw his weird furry friend had followed him through the drier. He hurried over to it, stroking its rough coat to calm it down.

Ibira gazed at him with an expression that hinted at admiration, thoughtfully fingering her tusk.

Jason suddenly noticed an object hanging from the dog thing's collar, a cylindrical attachment, like a pill bottle. He unscrewed it, removed it from the collar, and found it to be a key. _"Need something unlocked?"_

Ibira found a key matching his. Jason's mind started making romantic associations until she snatched his out of his hand, plugging it into a keyhole on the wall. "Sorry," he stammered.

Ibira just laughed and turned the key.

When Jason turned the other, a nearby lamp came on, illuminating a red symbol on a couch cushion.

Ibira took a knife to it, ripping out its stuffing. Someone had cleverly hidden a pair of plastic glasses inside. When Jason showed Ibira the zipper on the side of the cushion, she flushed orange.

_"I'd like to see that other room," _Ryan remarked._ "She probably has the whole place tore up._"

Jason raised an eyebrow.

Ibira put the glasses on. It wasn't a good fit, making him laugh.

She smiled. "The pale one I came here with owned an object just like this. What is its purpose?"

"To see things."

"It does nothing but darken my vision."

"Maybe they're sunglasses." He checked the lenses. "Red sunglasses. You can probably see secret codes with them."

"What is red?"

He pointed to the lens. "That. Red."

"The pale one said I am colorblind. Red is a color?"

Jason nodded.

"If you're colorblind, how do you know he was pale?" Ryan asked.

"Your skin has a different lightness than hers, or mine. That is how I can tell."

_"Oh. Like a black and white TV."_

Jason smirked. "To her, it would be a _regular TV._"

Ryan groaned at the joke.

He froze, getting that `Reading From Invisible Teleprompter' look again.

"Getting something?"

With a nod, Ryan donned a headset, typed a code on the telephone. After listening to it for a moment, he handed the headset to Jason and got up, seating himself at the desk next to him.

The moment Jason pulled the headset over his ears, he heard a grumpy female voice saying, "The domain password is 'Packers21'. Log in and open Kumazo. "

He did what was asked and found himself staring at the same weird looking 3D menu that Ryan had been navigating through earlier. "Click the cone?"

"Uh-huh."

Jason pushed the mouse button on the digitally rendered shape, bringing up the program menu the celery thing had appeared in last time. Now, however, he found himself staring at something resembling an eight eyed pink dinosaur.

"Resolve the call," said the voice in his ear.

"Wait," Jason blurted. "I saw a guy dying outside the window-"

Instead of answering, the voice dropped out and the reptile opened its mouth, jabbering something fast in a foreign language he didn't understand.

The creature frowned, waiting expectantly for an answer. When Jason didn't give one, it sighed.

"Leskikir rabmisija," a male voice said in his ear. "Say leskikir rabmisija."

"Leskikir rabmisija," Jason repeated.

The creature responded by saying the exact same thing it had said before.

The male voice said something else, Jason copied him, and the creature slowed its speech, though looking at him like he were retarded.

"Faqfawl vuigovok borgelaag," the man prompted.

Jason relayed the words slowly. The dinosaur thing spoke back, and Jason stammered out what was instructed.

"Let me try," Ibira cried enthusiastically.

Jason ignored her, attempting to continue the call.

His green acquaintance snatched the headset off his head, practically shoving him out of the chair in her eagerness to play around with the computer.

Jason staggered back, frowning as she jabbered things to the creature on the screen.

He was about to scold her, but stopped when he noticed how the dinosaur thing looked _relieved_ and a lot less annoyed.

He knelt next to Ibira, watching, dumbstruck, as the two creatures spoke. Fluently.

Ibira smiled, fluffed his hair with a third hand that wasn't busy doing anything.

That isn't too say she was competent. After rattling off something else, Jason found her staring at him. "I don't know what to do. He's asking me all these questions about machines and floor plans. I barely know how to make these buttons work."

Jason didn't know that much about the system himself. "Is that voice in your headset saying anything?"

She frowned. "Only that I'm doing fine, and I have something called `_rapport_.'"

It seemed the rapport only lasted so long. Whatever Ibira said next resulted in getting the creature angry and yelling.

Ibira snarled, drew her knife, and drove it through the monitor, creating a shower of broken plastic, sparks, and a lot of smoke.

"_Oh lovely_," Ryan remarked as he put his own device on mute. "_Way to show it who's boss!_"

In response, Ibira brandished her weapon threateningly, snarling at _him_.

Ryan raised his hands in surrender. "Whoa! Don't kill me, I'm only trying to help. All I meant was that you need _finesse_ to get out of here, and killing a computer..._isn't it._"

Ibira still clenched her fists, ready to attack. "_Who made this devious trap! I will kill them!"_

"Hey, Jason said. "Relax! We're not in any danger. Someone's testing us. It's just..._a game. _For, um, _fun. You're safe." _

Ibira glanced at her alien friend.

Tawroka shrugged.

"The creature in the device questioned my intelligence. That was not..._fun._"

"They tried to freeze us to death in darkness. We were _floating_!"

Jason frowned. "_I know. _We've got a lot of unanswered questions, but we've got to play by these guys's rules to get the answers."

The weapon got put away. "Help us out of here." Then, as an afterthought, "Please."

Ryan stared at Jason. "Can I have your glasses?...Looks like you won't be needing them anyway."

Jason handed them over.

"Oh. And I need that book too."

Once in possession of both items, Ryan spent several minutes speaking to a jellyfish creature as he read sections out of the book.

He put a hand to his ear. "Good news. Once the next call is over, we'll be done with puzzles."

It took a lot longer than expected. Jason and Ibira stood behind Ryan, watching him `work.'

After the jellyfish, he spoke to a woman with porcupine quills sticking out of her face. She seemed a little annoyed, but tolerant, like people get in line at the supermarket when the cashier is new and nothing can be done about it. She said something, perhaps a perfunctory thank you statement, then vanished from the screen.

His next creature ended up being the dinosaur. Upon seeing Ibira, it ducked, then started shouting in its own language, but Ryan held his fingers to his ear and stammered out an answer that somehow calmed the thing down, addressing...whatever concerns it had, in relationship to the manual, which he read with the red glasses.

When the conversation completed, Jason heard a click.

A door at the end of the marker board had popped open.

_Congratulations,_ a message flashed on the monitor. _You have completed the entrance exam. Please exit through the door._

"We passed?" Jason asked Ryan.

He shrugged. "It only said we '_completed_' it."

"Well, let's go."

As Jason approached the door, Ibira rushed ahead of him with her knife drawn, creeping up to the threshold like there were lions outside.

The green one frowned at what she saw, stepped through.

Instead of lions, Jason heard _applause_. He followed her out.

Jason now stood in a cube farm, surrounded by clapping people in business casuals. Among them he saw the celery creature, _and the dinosaur. They were both real._

Ibira let out a war cry, raising her blade as she charged into the crowd.

Jason paled. _"Ibira! No!" _


End file.
